Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

What is the Best Movie Collection Organizer Program

<< < (3/11) > >>

40hz:
I'm almost embarrassed to admit what I use.

My favorite movie collection 'program' is a file box with some 3x5 index cards arranged alphabetically by title.

I can seldom see the point of locally caching data that's readily available on the web. If I want to look up info on an individual film, I'll just go to IMDB or Amazon and read what I'm looking for.

I'm more concerned with keeping track of what I own, and who I've loaned it to than anything else, so a title card is pretty much all I need. The only other information on the card is the purchase date and price I paid for it. The main reason I keep track of the price is to 'remind' certain borrowers how much it would cost to get a title replaced if they lost it.

Borrowed title cards get put behind a divider in the back of the box. I also attach a Post-It note to the card showing the name of the borrower and the date it was loaned out.

Recently, I've begun marking certain expensive, collectible, or hard to replace titles with a pink highlighter. I now have a blanket rule that anything that's been "pinked" does not leave the premises. I instituted that rule after two nigh impossible to replace foreign titles went permanently missing after the nephew I loaned them to brought them to a college film party. (Nice to note that the "five-finger student discount program" has not been forgotten at some universities.)

--------

My GF came up with a technique that has worked wonders for getting things back.

Whenever somebody returns a movie to us, we make it a point to hand them back the Post-It with their name on it. It doesn't seem like much, but since we've started making a little ritual out of returning the borrower's chit, we haven't had anything not come back.

Ah psychology...sometimes it's a beautiful thing! :-*

sajman99:
@40hz: Some kids today act like they don't recognize pen and paper. That's old school, man!  8)

40hz:
@40hz: Some kids today act like they don't recognize pen and paper. That's old school, man!  8)
-sajman99 (June 26, 2009, 03:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

So I've been told.  ;D

(Still, I shudder to think what might happen to the iPhone crowd if a real war ever broke out. ;))

On a more positive note, my program is green, uses non-volatile storage, and will run anywhere.

And it's resilient! It will even work if the power goes out.

Maybe you couldn't watch a DVD if that happened...but let's not get too bogged down in the details! ;D

awraynor:
Lifehacker.com has done a couple of Hive Five (polls) of favorite Movie Organization programs.  Check out the member posts for lots of recommendations.

Innuendo:
I don't use any...but way back when I had noble intentions of keeping track of all my movies I bought eXtreme Movie Manager. The reasons I picked his over any of the others are many. First, he's one of the hardest working software authors I have ever seen bending over backwards to make his users happy. That much is evident from reading his forums.

Next, for what it does and the amount of work he has put into it he asks a mere pittance. Not only that, but he's insane enough to offer that price as a one-time fee with lifetime updates. Another plus for this program is that the author has built in this very powerful scripting engine that will allow users to get movie information from a wealth of sites. Did something on your favorite movie site change and now the program won't get information anymore? No need to wait for an update to the program. Grab a new version of your desired script from the forum or from the update function in the program.

The last reason I chose this program is it's not hard-coded for physical media. Most movie collection organizers have no provision for movies that are not physical media like DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. If you have rips stored on an HTPC or media server this program keeps track of them. You can even keep track of the accompanying movie trailers as well on your media if you're a movie trailer kind of person.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page